Syria is currently the deadliest country in the world for journalists. Professional media workers and “citizen journalists” have suffered the very abuses they have documented in Syria’s bitter civil war – unlawful killings, torture, enforced disappearances, abductions and intimidation – by both pro-government and anti-government forces. The Syrian authorities have violated international human rights law (including that "everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression”). They also have committed serious violations of international humanitarian law or the ‘laws of war’, including war crimes, against journalists and media workers, subjecting them to summary killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and hostage-taking. During March 2012 citizen journalist Ali Mahmoud Othman was arrested in the Aleppo province and appeared on Syrian state TV a month later where he was asked about his media activities and involvement with the popular anti-government protests in Homs. Since then Ali Mahmoud Othman has been held in conditions amounting to enforced disappearance. His family do not know where he is or whether he is alive. He has no access to a lawyer. He is forbidden to communicate with the outside world. Serious abuses, including war crimes, have also been carried out by some of the armed opposition groups. These include the beating and killing of captured government soldiers and supporters in front of the journalists, as well as abduction, torture and unlawful killing of journalists considered sympathetic to the government or hostile to the opposition. Help us put a stop to these serious violations now by signing this petition! We will share your signatures, together with Amnesty International’s demands, with President Bashar Al-Assad and Moaz al-Khatib from the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, as well as General Salim Idriss of the Supreme Military Command Council of the armed opposition groups. Your support can make a difference. FIRST NAME LAST NAME COUNTRY EMAIL ADDRESS